


Sticky Fingers

by amorekay



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-16
Updated: 2015-06-16
Packaged: 2018-04-04 18:15:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4147920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amorekay/pseuds/amorekay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Could he turn back into something of a respectable sort if he tried?</p><p>Nori’d be a liar if he said he hadn’t thought about it. Not that he <i>isn’t</i> a liar, per se, but he tries to make a habit of not lying to <i>himself</i>. The cost outweighs the benefits, and all that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sticky Fingers

Could he turn back into something of a respectable sort if he tried?

Nori’d be a liar if he said he hadn’t thought about it. Not that he _isn’t_ a liar, per se, but he tries to make a habit of not lying to _himself_. The cost outweighs the benefits, and all that. The wisdom of experience. Dori would be proud. 

He’s in the habit of picking up habits – the stealing, that’s a habit, and a good one if you ask him. Hard to get caught unawares when you’re always looking for something to knick, and harder still to go hungry if you’ve got a couple of coins weighing nicely in the soles of your boots. There might be, say, artistic differences between him and the rest of the world’s view, but he’s the one who’s making out all right, all right? Didn’t cost him nothing.

Ori is sketching something again, his head bent close over that notebook of his. Nori had been surprised, at that – he’d known Ori had more of a head for his letters than he’d ever had, but he hadn’t known he’d taken to art as well. He hadn’t known much about Ori at all, really. The visits had become further and few between as Ori got older and - as Dori liked to remind him - more impressionable. He wasn’t allowed to go filling the young’un’s head with nonsense like adventures and the like, but he’s pretty sure Ori did a good job of doing that on his own, since they’re on this quest now, aren’t they? 

He snorts, and Ori looks up at him, his eyes smudged dark and tired looking under his fringe of hair. He still looks so young – too damn young, especially for a quest doomed like this one. Nori isn’t in the habit of lying to himself, and he’d be the first to say he isn’t here to reclaim some pipe dream of the older dwarves and their king-without-a-throne. On the record, he’s here for the coin. 

Off the record, he’s here to make sure his brothers don’t get themselves killed. ‘Course, it’s more likely Dori will finally snap, and then he might take Nori from this world himself before he gets a chance to do much in the way of looking out for them. Ori though, he’s sweet, he doesn’t blame Nori for nothing – and Nori wouldn’t respect that, usually, but he thinks maybe it’s good that Ori doesn’t know any better. He’s a good kid. Maybe the best. As much as Nori doesn’t want to admit it – he thinks Dori did something right there. 

Maybe it was too late, for him. Or maybe he just isn’t wired like them, maybe the habits that made habits of themselves were a gift from his father, an inheritance all his own. Dori had tried, all those years ago, and it hadn’t done much but made him bail before his brother made good on his threat to get the law involved. That’s what he tells himself, but the secret is: Dori had cried and said he couldn’t do it, he couldn’t turn in Nori – and Nori had skipped out, and not come back for years. He wasn’t going to be responsible for his brother’s tears.

Ori had cried, the first few times he’d visited. He’d be telling them he was off again and Ori would stand there clutching his hand and fat tears would well up in his eyes, and it’d be all Nori could do to get out of there as quickly as possible. The tears stopped, at some point, when the visits got further apart and Nori barely recognized him from the tiny thing he’d once been. 

Now he’s sketching again, glancing up when Nori sidles up to look over his shoulder. It’s him and Dori, and it makes him laugh, because Ori’s got them looking just the way Nori feels whenever he gets into it with their brother. Like pulling teeth, it is. Ori turns the page back and holds it up for Nori to get a look at, and it’s a sketch of the place they’ve been traveling. The whole company is there, tiny figures in the distance, looking for all the world like they’re truly at the start of something magnificent. Ori’s got this way of looking at things, making them look beautiful. Making Nori want to believe in them. 

“Looks like something outta a story,” he says. He rubs at his nose, and then taps at the knife concealed at his side. Nori’s satisfied with the life he’s got, the life he had before they started on this. He’d been making out alright, and he’d got enough excitement to keep him properly on his toes, and there ain’t any other life he’d chose. No regrets.

He’s not in the habit of lying to himself.

**Author's Note:**

> I have a soft spot for these brothers.


End file.
